number fourteen THE CRITICAL COMPONENT: PERSONNEL STRATEGIES FOR THE SANDF TO 2000 AND BEYOND by James Higgs THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Established 1934 The Critical Component: Personnel Strategies for the SANDF to 2000 and Beyond James Higgs The Critical Component: Personnel Strategies for the SANDF to 2000 and Beyond James Higgs Director of Studies South African Institute of International Affairs Copyright ©1998 THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Jan Smuts House, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa Tel: (011) 339-2021; Fax: (011) 339-2154 All rights reserved ISBN: 1-874890-92-7 Report No. 14 SAIIA National Office Bearers Dr Conrad Strauss Gibson Thula • Elisabeth Bradley Brian Hawksworth • Alec Pienaar Dr Greg Mills Abstract This report contains the findings of a research project which examined the way in which the personnel strategies in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF ) are organised. A number of recommendations are made which are aimed at securing efficient, effective and democratically legitimate armed forces for South Africa. Section Four sets out the recommendations in the areas of: a public relations strategy for the SANDF ; the conditions of service which govern employment of personnel; a plan for retaining key personnel; a strategy for the adjustment of pay structures; a review of race representivity plans for the SANDF ; a strategy for reducing internal tension while reinforcing cultural identity and diversity; an overview of the rationalisation and retrenchment plans; observations on the health and fitness of the SANDF personnel; recommendations for increased efficiency in the administrative process and for the review of the current structure of support functions. Acknowledgments The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the British High Commission, Pretoria, in the pursuit of this project set up by Dr Greg Mills, National Director at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SA11A). The views expressed, however, are entirely my own and do not reflect the position of any government or institution. Many people who cannot be named have been supportive during the course of this research, and to them I owe a great debt of gratitude. Among those whom I can thank publicly, there are: Richard Morgan and Brigadier Murray Wiidman of the British High Commission; Patricia Hewitson of the Australian High Commission; Major-General Joan van der Poel of the Directorate of Personnel, SANDF ; Major-General Jackie Sedibe, Director of Equal Opportunities, SANDF ; Major-Genera! Andrew Masondo, Director of Corporate Communications, SANDF ; Lindy Heinecken of the Military Academy at Saldanha; Rear Admiral (JG) Peter Keene, Officer Commanding Naval Base, Simon's Town; Rear Admiral (JG) Jack Nel, Transformation Programme Director, South African Navy; Commander Chris Mertz, Training Commander SAS Saldanha; Dr Ian Hamill of the British Defence Advisory Team; the members of the British Military Advisory and Training Team, Pretoria; and Major-General (Retd.) Deon Mortimer; Dr Garth Shelton and Dr Philip Frankel of the University of the Witwatersrand. The assistance of my colleagues at SAIIA with earlier drafts was greatly appreciated. In particular, Dr Greg Mills and Professor Martin Edmonds have been most helpful, and Anne Katz, Andre Snyders, Pippa Lange and particularly Nicola Prins have been instrumental in making it less imperfect than it would otherwise have been. The faults, of course, are my responsibility. IV Dedication This report is dedicated to its subject; the men and women of the South African National Defence Force who are building the armed forces for the future. Table of Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv List of Tables vii 1. Introduction 1 1.1 The Background 1 1.2 The Context 2 1.3 The International Security Context 2 1.4 The Internal Context 4 1.5 The Budgetary Context 5 2. The Challenge of Integration 7 2.1 The Induction Process 7 2.2 Ethos and the SADF 10 2.3 Ethos and the Non-Statutory Forces 12 2.4 Ethos and the SANDF 14 2.5 Demobilisation 14 3. Current Issues in SANDF Personnel Strategy 18 3.1 Legitimacy, Image and Public Relations 18 3.2 Recruitment 21 3.3 Conditions of Service 24 3.4 Retention 24 3.5 Pay and Allowances 25 3.6 Race Representivity 27 3.7 Promotion 30 3.8 Language and Cultural Diversity 31 3.9 Gender 34 3.10 Professional Representation 35 3.11 Rationalisation and Retrenchment 36 3.12 Health and Fitness 37 3.13 Administrative Process 37 3.14 Personnel Structure of Support Functions 38 4. Towards a Personnel Strategy 2000: Considerations for Policy 39 5. Selected Reading 42 6. Glossary 42 7. Appendices 45 Songs from the Era of Struggle 45 About the SAIIA 46 Recent SAIIA Publications 47 About the Author 48 List of Tables Table 1: SA Defence Budget Distribution 1989-90 Relative to 1997-98 Table 2: Medium Term Defence Budget Allocation for Personnel, Operating and Capital Table 3: SANDF Integration Numbers Table 4: Demobilisation Payments 15 Table 5: Changes in DOD Composition (including civilians) per Race, 1994-97 15 Table 6: DOD Composition by Former Force of Origin (including civilians) as at 1 May 1997 16 Table 7: SANDF Planned Terms of Service 24 Table 8: Salary Ranges for Military Practitioners, 1996 26 Table 9: Allowances Available in the SANDF 27 Table 10: Race Representation: Nationally and in the SA Army 29 Table 11: Officially Proposed Recruitment Quotas for the SA Army 30 Table 12: Infantry Mustering by Rank and Former Force of Origin 36 VII 1. Introduction 1.1 The Background It can hardly be overemphasised that the creation of the SANDF has been one of the great success stories of the modern South Africa, and that major progress has been made in the transformation of this critical area of public service. Inevitably, a study of this kind will focus on the work that is still to be done, but it is worth paying tribute at the outset to the determination, commitment and sheer effort of the SANDF personnel who have made it their business to play a part in the long, difficult and sometimes frustrating process of building a Defence Force of which South Africa can be proud. However, substantial questions remain about the tasks which it will be expected to fulfil, its budgetary allocations, its personnel structures and the equipment procurement programme. This study seeks to address the following questions: • To set the context in which the SANDF operates and to outline the approach of the study. • To examine the stated rationale for the SANDF . • To assess the challenges posed by the creation of the SANDF . • To report on the current status of the personnel organisation in the SANDF . • To extract and analyse the lessons which can be learnt from the experience of other armed forces. • To define the issues which need to be addressed by a personnel strategy for the SANDF . This study aimed to provide policy recommendations that can make a constructive contribution to the debate about the future of the SANDF . Originally, the intention was that a number of case studies would be used to extract useful lessons for South Africa. This proved unworkable both because the details furnished by a full case-study would have been too discrepant from South Africa's circumstances to be helpful1 and because, in certain cases, the relevant information was unavailable. Accordingly, comparative information used on occasion to illustrate a point or clarify an issue is derived ma\n\y from the British Armed Forces. This study focusses exclusively on the full-time component of the SANDF. 'For more information on demobilisation in Angola, Chad, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Uganda and Zimbabwe see the executive summary of the World Bank Discussion Paper, Demobilisation and Reintegration of Military Personnel in Africa, reprinted in Cilliers, J (ed.), Dismissed: Demobilisation and Reintegration of Former Combatants in Africa, Institute for Defence Policy, 1996. 1.2 The Context The 1990s have been a time of drastic change for the SANDF. Not only have they been faced with the radical downsizing and restructuring which have confronted many major actors in response to the end of the Cold War, but they have also been required to adapt to the revolution in domestic politics which ended the apartheid regime and installed a new government in power under the presidency of Nelson Mandela. The demands placed upon the armed forces have ranged from the integration of tens of thousands of personnel from a variety of statutory (mostly regular) and non-statutory forces {mostly irregular) and to the constitutional re-establishment of democratic control, to requests by other countries for South African participation in peacekeeping missions. The newly created SANDF has embarked upon an immense task. First, it must attempt to create a common institutional culture which will be both acceptable to personnel drawn from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds, and effective as a means of generating the esprit de corps upon which fighting forces depend for their unit cohesion. They must also recruit, train and deploy this force at a time when the resources allocated to the defence budget have come under severe pressure from the demands of other areas of government spending. The third aspect of this process of reformation has been to attempt to re-establish the legitimacy of the South Africa's armed forces with those whose treatment by the security forces of the state under the previous regime was what might be described as summary. On analysing human resource strategies for armed forces, it is helpful to consider the contexts in which they take place and the kinds of models from which the new force structure might be derived.2 The contexts include the international security environment from which perceived threat or risk is generated and to which it is the primary function of armed forces to respond, the internal circumstances where policy is driven by political, cultural and budgetary factors, and the inherited context in which the traces of previous regimes, policies and programmes are imposed upon contemporary policy-makers.